Saturday, July 15, 2017

Jack Peoples, James Stinson 15th anniversary and more

I'm guessing many of you by now will have received the Jack People's EP, Laptop Cafe, on Clone Aqualung. I'm loving hearing these new sounds from James Stinson 15 years after he died. Sleeve and label info is ultra minimal, track titles are just 'Song 01' etc but it's nice to know the cover artwork was done by one of his daughters. According to Discogs there is also a clear blue vinyl edition.

As this year is such a significant anniversary I'm floating the idea that perhaps fans around the world might want to celebrate his life with a night of his music or whatever you think would be appropriate. It doesn't have to be big, just something in a bar or club on or close to 3rd September. If anyone wants to organise such an event please let me know and I will be happy to share it here and on the DRL FB page.

There is a new collaborative track, '00045.00.2.6', between The Exaltics and Rudolf Klorzeiger aka Gerald Donald on a new album by them called Das Heise Experiment 2 - The Prequel. You can listen to samples at Soundcloud and pre-order it at Bandcamp.

There is 17 minutes of Arpanet live at the Terraforma festival, Italy from 24th June 2017. It seems to be from the sound desk so it's pretty good quality. It's mostly unreleased material so grab this one from NTS while it's still available.

A new Dopplereffekt live show has just been announced. They are on the bill for the opening event of the Present Perfect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia on 28th July. Actress and Clock DVA are also in the line-up, pretty cool show.

This is a live video of a new track by Dopplereffekt from a festival they played in Beijing, China about 6 weeks ago. The track reminds me of Black Replica and appears to have a female vocal sample, it's really nice. I also found this video overview of Sonar 2017, you can catch 30 seconds worth of Dopplereffekt live at the 6min 18sec mark. Looks good and sounds like a new female led vocal track.

DJ Stingray has mixed Kern Vol. 4 on Tresor which features tracks by Drexciya, Dopplereffekt, NRSB-11 and many more, available here.

“I was sitting there and thinking, ‘What am I doing here? I’m actually doing a deal while fishing! It’s like fishing for Drexciya or something!”

According to the RBMA article by Mike Rubin, in the late 90s Carola Stoiber of Tresor was taken by James Stinson to Detroit’s Belle Isle Park for an afternoon of fishing. Sounds like the kind of place he would have hung out at, there is even an aquarium there.

This is a link to yet another new Drexciya tribute mix, this time from Radio Interferencia. Fan mixes of the music of Drexciya and or Heinrich Mueller have by now become something of an online phenomena. When I search for Drexciya now in Mixcloud for example I do wonder which other artist has more and that is just one host! Even I've made one!

One of the more surprising new pieces of information about Drexciya from the RBMA article by Mike Rubin was that the Shifted Phases album, The Cosmic Memoirs of the Late Great Rupert J. Rosinthorpe (2002), was produced by Gerald Donald and given as a wedding present to James Stinson (he must have gotten married in 2001?). This is according to Carola Stoiber of Tresor. I guess if this is true, perhaps Stinson only came up with the titles and concept. We will never know for sure how it all came together but it's interesting to listen to these tracks in this different light and illustrates just how musically similar and interchangeable they could be. Drexciya were never about the personalities behind it anyway so it's not that important.

“I know they had rented a hall on Gratiot,” says Banks. “It was shaping up to be the after-party of the year, but they pulled no permits and the cops showed up. That’s about as close to a Drexciya live show that ever happened.”

I also learned from the article that they had planned to make their live debut with Dopplereffekt and Ultradyne at an after party show during the Detroit Electronic Music Festival in 2001. It looks like they had no permit to have the show and the Police must had heard about it and closed it down earlier in the day. This must be a contender for the best show that never happened! I found a link for DEMF 2001 and it does say, "rumor has it that Drexciya will make its live debut alongside Dopplereffekt and Ultradyne."

Dopplereffekt and Ultradyne playing live during the Dekmantel festival in Amsterdam, Holland. Dopplereffekt play on Thursday 3rd August and Ultradyne are on Sunday the 6th. They would even make one hell of a double bill. This is a rare live show from Ultradyne these days and they do put on an amazing show. Staying on an Ultradyne tip, here's one for you to think about, why would they be playing Transllusion's 'Crossing Into The Mental Astroplane' from The Opening of the Cerebral Gate album at this live show from 2007. It doesn't appear to be a DJ set as another video I link in comments from the same gig shows they are playing live. Perhaps they collaborated on just this track or the whole album?

“The idea that an artist probably in her early 20s clearly had come to Drexciya by her own path and had come up with this kind of artistic rendition complete with maps and place names was very striking to me. It’s just a small example of how they continue to impact artists of all kinds in very unexpected ways. I was kind of moved, actually, as well as amazed and impressed, and it suggested to me that the spell of Drexciya – the capacity to encharm and to summon world-building – has not diminished by any means.” - Kowdo Eshun

I think I found this mix mentioned at the end of the Red Bull Music Academy article about the legacy of Drexciya. It's called, Interstellar Fugitives: A Cosmic Memory and Astronomical Guidepost of Drexciya (2016) by the Spanish/Argentine artist, Magui Dávila.

3 Comments:

Hello this is Fabrizio from italy. I own a small beer and vinyl records shop here in Rome and every weeks we attend small electronic music events. We decided to host an event to celebrate Drexciya music with a dj set night here at Spin! Beershop & Records on sat 2 september. I leave our mail address to keep in touch spin.roma@gmail.com. Peace

In memory of James Stinson, I'm having a special Drexciya show on radio in September, I want something different from another mix compiling best tracks so, it will be different and with surprises. Would love to work on a proper event but I doubt anyone around where I live care about this music ;